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While perhaps not as famous as "Why is this night different from all other nights?" the phrase, "Let all who are hungry, come and eat," is certainly one of the more familiar quotations from the Haggadah. And while there are varying interpretations of this concept, the notion of welcoming a stranger to the seder table is a central theme of...

At the moment humans were created, our sages say, God gathered earth from the four points of the compass, as if to promise that wherever we die, the earth will be there to receive us. We are but borrowed soil, gathered and quickened into temporary life. Ever since, we human beings have been yearning for each other's company. This week's...

A story is told about a teenager from a secular American family who, after a number of years of living in Israel, decided to become observant. Although the family had been living there for nearly five years, the boy's mother still prepared a stuffed-turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. Wanting to honor his parents, as well as keep the laws of the...

I believe that one of the requirements of adolescence is that each generation of teens must find new and creative ways to annoy their parents and any other adult in the vicinity. In recent years, one such habit is the use of the word "whatever" as a response to almost any statement or question. "Whatever" means "I have better things...

Judaism is inconceivable without the concept of the sacred. We are commanded to augment the world's supply of holiness, and this week's portion explains how. After making the furnishings for the desert tabernacle, the Israelites are informed, "Whatever touches them shall become holy." The sacred, apparently, passes the way a lot of things do: by contact. How that happens becomes...